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Guiding Survival Treks
Wolf Journey Part Six – Trail of the Hunter includes a field exercise that directs students to embark on a Survival Trek, which is a form of testing the traditional living skills s/he has begun to learn over the course of this curriculum. There are many forms that such an experience can take, and this essay is meant to give a few examples, as well as point out some of the potential pitfalls.
Until we put our skills to the test in real situations, we don't really know whether we are adept at the skills. Survival treks can give us a safe, simulated experience that let us know how adept we are outdoors, and where we need to practice. Anyone can do a survival trek, and simply bring along with them the things they need to survive, minus one element to practice from scratch, without suffering much.
The survival trek can also be an excellent rite of passage, and very successful if done sensitively. One of the important aspects of a rite of passage is that a person feels a sense of accomplishment. What a tangible accomplishment it is in our affluent society to, say, survive 3 days without food, or build one's own home in less than a day!
A rite of passage is always an ordeal, and a survival trek may be the most difficult ordeal of any I suggest in this curriculum. It is one thing, for example, to survive 3 days without food during a Life Purpose Retreat as I describe in the next essay, but it is another to survive 3 days while having to work hard all the while, building one's own shelter, maintaining fire from scratch all night long, staying warm without bundles of clothing, and gathering one's own plants, bugs, fish, etc. while "starving" and feeling no energy at all.
Safety precautions abound during survival treks. Simply, it is when a person is tired, hungry, thirsty, lonely, exasperated, uncomfortable, scared, etc. when they get hurt. And during a survival trek, most of these feelings will occur. In other words, the risk of injury is above and beyond that of any other experience in this curriculum? I can't possibly list all the risks, so experience and a regular Wilderness First Aid courses are key.
Of course, a survival trek does not have to be so difficult. In fact, I do not recommend that it be overly difficult at all. Maybe a young man with a need to prove his manhood needs such a survival trek, and that may be the most effective rite of passage possible for him. But most people don't need that. What we need is to practice our skills efficiently. To this end, I recommend a few forms of survival trekking listed at the end of this essay.
Priorities of Survival
When embarking on a survival trek, it is critical to remember the basic rules for survival that I am about to detail. I derive these basic rules from two sources. First it is what Tom Brown said that his mentor, Stalking Wolf, called the Sacred Order of Survival. I have taken the liberty to amend the sacred order a little, because in Stalking Wolf's day, no one really had to think about the most basic need in life: breathing. His order of survival skips that primary need. Nowadays, people panic quickly, so it is important to remind people that the most basic need is breathing.
Let me give you an example. We’ve all gotten lost in the woods, but what happens if we can’t find our way out before dark, and we are unprepared for a cold storm moving in on us? In some cases, hunters have simply died with their rear ends frozen to the log they sat down on, according to Tom Brown. On the other hand, children who get lost in the woods are found alive more often than adults. Why is this?
There have also been cases that Brown talks about where people got so panicked, that they have run right across a road in broad daylight, and didn’t even notice the road was there, only to trip and fatally hurt themselves as they continued to run blindly through the woods. Why didn’t their tracks show any sign of recognition as they bolted across the road and thrashed into the brush on the other side?
The answer to these unbelievable situations is simple: low oxygen levels in the brain. When we panic, just like when we get cold, we tend to cross our arms in front of us, which constricts our chest, and we take short, rapid breaths that bring oxygen only a short distance into the lungs. Panic is simply this: not breathing.
Notice it the next time you get chilly, and instead of curling up against the cold, stand up straight, and take 10 slow, deep breaths into your lungs. Be sure to blow absolutely all the air out of your lungs each time, and then you will naturally take a deep breath afterward.
Blowing the air out first is critical, so push your stomach inward when you are exhaling, getting the air out of the bottom of your lungs first, then your chest. Then go ahead and pull air into the very bottom of your lungs by sticking out your stomach at the same time as you inhale.
The more air you take into this bottom of your lungs means the more power you will have in any situation. Practice this breathing whenever you can. It certainly can’t hurt, and you will be amazed at what it does for you in the cold and during other stressful situations.
Most people get really tense at first when they try to fill up their lungs fully. See if you can do it without straining yourself, without tensing up your neck and other parts of your body. Over time, you will relax into this form of breathing, and nothing will tense up. That will be critical if ever you get into a survival situation.
Breathing is the key to maintaining a positive attitude, and to staying warm, the most basic of survival needs. If your breathing is calm, deep, sure – then you will have a full amount of oxygen going to the brain, and your instincts will be strong. If you breathe like this, you will know what steps to take, with your mind crystal clear and able to make all correct decisions.
To further amend Stalking Wolf's Sacred Order of Survival, Tom Brown himself pointed out that in the old days, you could drink almost any fresh water on this continent without fear. Nowadays, you can drink almost no water without fear of viral, bacterial or chemical contamination. So we need to put the survival skill of fire (to purify water through boiling) right up there with the basic need of finding fresh water.
The other source for my list of basic needs, skills and tools comes from what Dr. Ron Hood calls the Law of Three. What can’t you live without for more than about 3 minutes? Air. What can’t you live without for more than about 3 hours in the severest of weather? Warmth. What can’t you live without for more than about 3 days before getting critically dehydrated? Water. What can’t you live without for more than about 3 weeks before becoming useless? Food. This is the Law of Three.
Of course, you can live beyond the Law of Three if you have a good mental attitude and are in relatively good shape. Acclaimed international search and rescue tracker Joel Hardin told me a story about the time he tracked the guy who walked across the Great Sandy Desert of Australia without bringing any food or water. He went 7 days at a stretch without water, and lived off wild edible plants for almost the same number of weeks.
All the “survival experts” in Australia claimed that the whole event was a hoax. But in my experience, I know how much further we can push our human bodies past what seems medically impossible. Breathing deeply and keeping a strong mental attitude have always been the key for me to accomplish such feats, however minor they may have been in my case.
Then why have children survived in cold emergencies better than some grown hunters? Because the thought that they were going to die never crossed their minds. Therefore, they kept a “good mental attitude.” Those hunters who died probably decided that there was just no way out of their situation. So instead of seeking a natural shelter, they just sat down and froze.
Children also behave more instinctually. Brown talks about feeling much more optimistic in a tracking situation if the lost person is a child, because more often than adults, the child will instinctively seek shelter and stay there when it’s miserable outside. Also, children tend to drink their water as soon as when they are thirsty, whereas Tom Brown told a class I was in that he has tracked adults, dead of dehydration, with a full water bottle laying next to them, perhaps because they thought they would “save it for when they needed it.”
And it is shelter, not fire, which best addresses the need for warmth. Shelter can come in many forms. For example, get underneath a cedar tree – ones with branches that droop down and thereby shed wind and water away from the base of the tree. Another is stuffing leaves, grass and other debris between layers of clothing. But the best shelter in a survival situation is building a natural sleeping bag.
A natural sleeping bag begins with a frame, which can be a tight cave, crevasse between logs, or a stick frame that you build yourself. Of course, the frame needs to be covered with bark or stone to stay waterproof, but if you are using debris alone, it needs to be pitched at an angle and about 3 feet deep in order to stay waterproof in a downpour.
Inside the frame, you will need to stuff leaves, grass and other debris until the frame can hold no more. The debris can be moist, though it will take you a few hours of laying in it to dry out the layer around you so that you are comfortable. The frame also needs to be very sturdy, so that as you are taking a few minutes to wriggle yourself into the debris, the structure stays together.
Next, the order of survival addresses your need for water. In the old days, you could just drink out of streams and lakes. But nowadays, giardia and other water-born diseases cause diarria and vomiting within a week of drinking contaminated water. So lacking a filter, purification tablets, or knowledge about which plants you can get water from, you need a fire and a bowl to boil your water.
No bowl? Carve and burn one out of wood. No knife? Find a rock to scrape the wood. It will take you ten times longer to make a bowl and fire without a good knife or hatchet, but I’ve done it a few times, frustrating as it sometimes was. So making a fire is the next task you will need to complete in the order of survival.
As many times as I’ve started a good fire, I’ve also gone through many books of matches trying to get fire in bad conditions. I won’t go into what I finally found to be a fool-proof method of starting fire without materials from home. I still prefer the gasoline method, but that’s not always an option. Yes, that was a joke.
Tom Brown says he has found 23 primitive ways to start fire by friction in his world travels. Many of us wouldn’t be caught dead in the woods without our lighter, not to mention our knives. On the other hand, some kid in some third world country probably got paid about $1 working all day making those blessed lighters, so I always think it's worth it to make my own fire by friction. It reminds me of the sacredness of creation – getting that coal and flame is like the birth of a child.
I can get the “bow drill” that most of us saw in boy scouts to work consistently, and I also like the “hand drill” method, especially since it is like praying, although it doesn’t work as easily in cold or wet conditions. It is absolutely impossible to describe how to work these primitive drills, even diagramming them on paper. None of the books do them justice. You just need to be taught by an expert, unless you want to spend eons re-inventing the wheel like I did.
Once that fire is going, you can speed up the time it takes to make your wooden bowl (gotta have a bowl to boil water now that giardias and other illnesses are so prevalent) by putting coals in it to burn. This also takes some trial and error, but once you have the knack, it’s kind of fun. Watch out, however, because blowing coals rapidly increases dehydration. Be sure to scrape it with sandstone or sand paper before putting water in it. Otherwise, your water will look and taste pretty charred.
Now here’s a mental challenge for you. I had to sit and think – I mean breathe – a long time before figuring this one out. If you have a wooden bowl, how can you possibly boil your water? This dilemma is why I always carry a tin cup or metal pot in my survival bag.
It is possible to boil water in a wooden bowl, though. The trick is to heat up rocks in your fire, and then pick them up with tongs or sticks to place them into your water. Make sure the rocks have not been soaked in water anytime in the past year, so that they don’t blow up in the fire. Conglomerate stones, like concrete, are most dangerous. They really like to explode.
The rocks need to be red hot in order to boil your water, and you will need to experiment with the right size and number of rocks to boil whatever amount of water you have. Oh, and a final tip. Be sure to quickly dip the hot rocks in a separate bit of water to clean them off before dropping them in your bowl.
Finally, the order of survival brings you to your need for food. Sure, you can survive weeks without food, but those first couple days without it are torture. Your work productivity is bad, because you feel like a limp noodle. Many of us are used to eating a good portion of meat at least once a day, and without it, we don’t do too well.
Skinny vegetarians actually do better without food for the first couple days of a survival situation. They are used to starving, so it doesn’t feel so bad. Hefty people outlast them, though. After the third day, I’ve found that my energy level comes back pretty strong. By then, the metabolism has agreed to feed off my beer belly instead of waiting for the actual beer.
I don’t have to tell you that the skill we need at this point in the order of survival is hunting. Of course, most people don’t know how to hunt very well, so they go as hungry as those poor people on the Survivor show. It’s probably a lot faster to teach people how to identify and eat a few wild edible plants.
We have to keep our egos in check, though, when it comes to wild edible plants. I’ve made the mistake of being only 90% sure that a plant was one that I thought was edible. Spent a couple hours coughing. Good thing the plant wasn’t something more deadly, like Foxglove, which would have given me a heart attack, or Poison Hemlock, which would have slowed my heart down until it stopped.
These plants, like every plant, have their gifts, too. A derivative of foxglove, for instance, is an important heart medicine. Even the peskiest of plants, like the dandelion, have great gifts as it turns out. I can remember the day that Melva slipped me a cup of dandelion coffee without telling me that it wasn’t really coffee. Before I realized what she had done, I had complemented her on her fine cooking.
After she told me about her grand scam, made from roasted roots of the plant, she presented me with a bottle of freshly corked dandelion wine, which she said she brewed from the plant’s flowers. I still haven't opened that bottle, but if it’s half as good as the nut-like taste of the fried dandelion heads she fed me for dinner, or the fresh little leaves that she put in the salad she made me eat, then I’ll be impressed.
The blade as the number one survival tool is obvious. When I’m traveling light, I only take along my 3 inch, Frost Mora knife blade with a solid, hard plastic handle. Made in Sweden, I think it’s the best knife available because it’s so inexpensive, but just as good as any high-end blade. Of course, a hatchet will do bigger work much quicker.
A lighter is what I carry as my fire starter. I also like to carry some dry tinder with me, because it saves so much time if I don’t need to search out material under an overhang, or dry it underneath my clothes. If I’m feeling really primitive, then I take my “hand drill” or “bow drill” materials with me instead.
The metal bowl is an obvious top 4 item, since it takes a really long time to make a wooden one, which is so much heavier and more difficult to boil water in than metal. And the big garbage bag is on my list because it is the smallest, lightest and quickest shelter that I can carry. Stuffed with debris, it becomes a warm sleeping bag. Of course, I’d rather have a real sleeping bag and a tarp with me, but then that’s a lot of bulk and weight.
Last on the list is string or rope. I like to carry something with me that is strong enough to use as a snare or as a survival bow string. Synthetic strings are the strongest, but jute cordage is really handy, because it can also be shredded to use as excellent fire tinder. Rope can also be used to secure shelter frames, and for a million other uses.
There are several other items that are handy, and for some, critical unless you know how to fashion them from natural materials. But the most important thing to remember if ever you find yourself in a survival situation is to breathe calmly. Whatever you lack will present itself if you really need it. You may not be very comfortable at first, but you will survive.
Finally, remember that accidents are most likely to happen when we are cold, tired, hungry, thirsty and stressed. These are the times when I have cut myself with my knife, tripped and sprained my ankle, gotten myself lost, and yelled at my best friends for no reason when I should have just paused, taken a few deep breaths, and found a way to enjoy whatever situation I got myself into.
Varieties of Survival Trek
Variety A: Leave the Sleeping Bag & Tent Behind One of the varieties of survival trek that I recommend is to perfect your most basic survival skill (besides breathing, of course). Bring all the gear you want, as long as you are without shelter or any form of insulation. Novices should start early on a summer morning, bring a fire kit which includes tinder and kindling, as well as the garbage bags with string as a back-up shelter. Experts should go during the winter or begin just an hour or two before nightfall, and bring only food, water, bowl, knife, two normal layers of clothing, and fire starter. But always bring the first aid gear, let people know where you are, what you are doing,, and better yet, have someone watch you.
Variety B: Leave the Water & Fire Starter Another variety of survival trek that I recommend is to work on primitive firemaking. Bring all the gear you want, as long as you are without any fire starter. Novices should start early in the morning, and have a back-up fire kit made in case the one you gather and make today doesn't work out so well. Experts should go when it is rainy, extremely cold, or just after dusk. Still bring the first aid gear, let people know where you are, what you are doing,, and if possible, have someone watch you.
Variety C: Leave the Water & Bowl Still another variety of survival trek that I recommend is to work on purifying water. Bring all the gear you want, as long as you are without any means of carrying water. Novices should start early in the morning, and be near a safe drinking water source in case the bowl you make today doesn't work out so well. Experts should start after dusk with only a primitive fire kit that is pre-made, or maybe be nowhere near water, so that you need to make a solar still or sop-up dew. Still bring the first aid gear, let people know where you are, what you are doing,, and if possible, have someone watch you.
Variety D: Leave the Blade Yet another variety of survival trek that I recommend is to figure out how to do everything without a knife, hatchet or any modern blade. Bring all the gear you want otherwise. Novices should start early in the morning, and bring their pre-made primitive fire kit, but without tinder or firewood. Experts should bring no fire kit or fire starter or rope of any kind (don't use your shoe laces, either). As always, bring the first aid gear, let people know where you are, what you are doing,, and if possible, have someone watch you.
Variety E: Bring only the Basics The final variety I'll mention for now is what I call the Basics. For this trek, bring the four most important tools for survival that I mention earlier in this essay: just a blade, fire starter, metal bowl, and a garbage bag with string. Novices should start the trek in the morning and bring along food (no water), while experts should start at dusk and leave the food behind. As always, bring the first aid gear and let people know where you are, what you are doing, and have someone checking on you.
How you do things beyond those suggestions is up to you: how long you stay, where you go, etc. But remember, people are depending on you back home, so stay safe. Also, be absolutely sure that you have permission to do the things you are planning to from whomever owns the property you use. And stay legal: know the fire, hunting, trapping, and plant harvesting rules of your county or state.
Remember that just like with any rite of passage, the three stages of the process are critical to success: preparation, ordeal and integration. The more you prepare for a survival trek and are clear with your intention, the more successful you will be. The better you prepare your plan of action during the trek, the better the result, however different it may be than what you planned. And the better the plan you have to integrate back into your daily life, the more successful you will feel in the end.
Finally, a teacher, guide or mentor who helps a student with a survival trek should not only help them plan and prepare, but also help the student evaluate the ordeal afterward. Encourage them to journal the experience, of course, and evaluate the attitude, safety, site selection, shelter quality, water source, fire-making-and-extinguishing, craftwork materials and quality, food and cooking quality, medicine quality, and oh, did I forget to mention safety?
- Chris Chisholm
Index to Wolf Journey (chapters currently uploaded)
• Introduction to Part One - Skills of the Naturalist
• Chapter 1 - Your peaceful place.
• Chapter 2 - Fears & Hazards.
• Chapter 3 - Sensory Awareness.
• Chapter 4 - Sketching & Journaling.
• Introduction to Part Two - Skills of the Tracker
• Chapter 5 - Humans and the Hidden Wilderness.
• Chapter 6 - Shape Shifting.
• Chapter 7 - Mammal Mysteries.
• Chapter 8 - Bird Vocalizations.
• Introduction to Book 3 - Skills of the Herbalist
• Chapter 9 - Caretaking Nature.
• Wolf Journey Handbook for Students & Teachers.
• Chapter 30: Glossary of Terms.
• Chapter 31: Outings Checklists.
• Chapter 32: Understanding Taxonomy.
• Remaining chapters to be uploaded asap.
Wolf Journey is available complimentarily online, though we suggest donating $1.00 per chapter or set of recordings you utilize, with checks payable to Wolf Camp, 1026 14th St. SW, Puyallup WA 98371. Books and other resources which you will need for successful completion of field exercises throughout Wolf Journey can be purchased through Granny's Country Store or by calling them at 406-287-3605 to order. You can work through Wolf Journey independently, but we recommend this book series as part of our Correspondence Course, Academic Year Class Series, In-Depth Apprenticeships and Summer Training Camps, but if you would like an instructor from your own area to guide you while studying these skills, we recommend clicking on PrimitiveSkillsLinks.Com to find an earth skills specialist near you who can personally review your field exercises and journaling work, which you can keep track of on your Student Transcripts. Other schools and outdoor instructors who would like to use this curriculum for their own programs are free to do so. We would appreciate donations, or having your students donate as described above.
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